Austin Koo's Mandarin

318 West Adams, Chicago, Illinois 60606
(312) 236-1666

The year is 1993, the time New Year's eve, and food critic James Ward of WLS-TV's Channel 7 (ABC) has just announced his annual "Top Ten Favorite Restaurants" in middle-America. Of course every restaurant considers it a great honor to be chosen from among the 20,000 or so in the tri-state area of Indiana, Wisconsin, and Illinois. This year Austin Koo's Mandarin is listed in the third spot right after Bossa Nova and Cafe Iberica.

Since these pronouncements began in 1986, this was only the second Chinese restaurant to make this prestigious list; an honor indeed!

If you are lucky or smart or both, go to the Chicago loop and across the street from the Sears Towers, enjoy savoring their special treats. The luckiest people are those who work in downtown Chicago; the smart ones the

others willing to make a special trip for an extraordinary dining experience at very ordinary neighborhood prices.

You'll find a sophisticated roster of Sichuan savories expertly executed as are dishes from

many other provinces of China. Try the Orange Beef, the neat nest of crisp potato sticks enclosing Shrimp and Scallops in Creamy Sauce, and the hot and spicy General Tso's Chicken, whose recipe they have kindly given for you to try at home.

Austin Koo's Mandarin has collaborated with Rodale food consultants, the folks who publish Prevention Magazine, to create Chicken with Chinese Vegetables and seventeen other special delectable and diet conscious menu items; their fat, cholesterol and sodium analyzed for patron considera-tion. In order to be dietary specific, the restaurant is careful to pre-weigh all ingredients before cooking them.

Aside from the fantastic diet food and wonderful classic culinary creations, a unique feature of this restaurant is that their seven cooks are all Mexican-Americans trained by an experienced and expert Chinese chef. If you never thought it possible that authentic Chinese

food could be made in this cross-cultural manner, go taste it and be as pleased and impressed as others have been. After you do, it can be one of your top ten restaurants, too!